


Mona Lisa, you're an overrated piece of shit

by redletters



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Petty Jealousy, Renaissance France, Renaissance Italy, Tudor England, kind of Crowley (Good Omens)/Leonardo da Vinci, many kinds of wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-10-01 17:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/pseuds/redletters
Summary: Anyone calling themselves something like 'Defender of the Faith' shouldn't be surprised when Hell comes knocking. Or: Aziraphale doesn't know how, exactly, but whatever is going on with Henry VIII's sex life is absolutely 100% Crowley's fault. With a side trip on Crowley and Leonardo's Excellent Italian Adventure.





	Mona Lisa, you're an overrated piece of shit

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #14

## London, 1533

"Now, you must stay _strong_, Your Majesty," said the queen's confessor. "_You_ know you are rightfully Henry's wife, the _world_ knows it, and most importantly _God_ knows it. The Almighty rewards those who are patient and trust in h– ooh, are those Seville orange cakes?"

"Please," Catherine said with a permissive wave of her ringed hand. "Chapuys sends them to me to keep my spirits up. But since Henry sent me away, I cannot eat."

"I suppose they'll only go to waste otherwise," the holy father said, leaning forward.

The queen watched him with patience, as she did everything with patience.

"The thing you must remember," he said several seconds later, swallowing, "is that as long as you do what's right in God's eyes, everything will all work out for the best. The most important thing is to have faith."

"You are such a comfort to me," Catherine said.

The priest beamed. "You are too kind to say so, Your Majesty."

"I have to admit – I cannot always keep my spirits up," she said. "It's so difficult, especially –" Her facade broke and she dropped her head. "He will not let me see my daughter," she said.

"Oh, my dear," her confessor said. With an instinctive motion, he knelt and took her hands in his.

"He said if I agreed to this 'annulment', he would let her see me again," Catherine said. "She was so sick – I almost – but of course you are right." She blinked, and her eyes were a little brighter, and after a few quick flicks of her eye and short breaths, she resumed. "Of course you are right. I must be strong."

"Oh," said the priest.

"It must be part of God's plan," she said. "To test my faith."

"Yes," Aziraphale said. His voice sounded much less convinced than he was sure he felt. "Yes, of course – it's all part of God's plan."

## London, 1532

"Now, you've got to take it nice and sloooooow," said the minstrel of the queen's lady-in-waiting. He was lounging on the couch in her apartments with his foot up, one hand idly resting on the lute in his lap, plinking enough that their low voices just couldn't be overheard; her other ladies sat a discreet distance away, at the other end of the room, sewing. "Make him work for it a little."

The queen's lady-in-waiting shifted her needlework along. She was embroidering an apple, and had just rounded the tip of the stem. "I still fail to see how letting the king feel up my tits –"

"Just the one tit, my lady, have I taught you nothing?"

"–will help bring all of England to the light of Lutheranism."

Her minstrel shrugged. "You know men."

Anne looked at him severely. "I do, as you very well know. Besides, Mary gave him the full French treatment, including – that, and he has not turned against the Church or even his wife in any way whatsoever. He didn't even marry her."

"Who would want to _marry_ a king?" her minstrel said speculatively, before checking himself and swinging his legs over. "Oh, right. Anyway – Mary's problem was twofold. One – " he held up a long finger – "she gave it up too easy. Two – she didn't have a _plan._ But you are much more sensible. How else will it happen?"

Anne looked unconvinced. Her minstrel changed key. "You're the _only_ one who can do it, my lady. The only one bright enough, clever enough, pretty enough -"

"I'm not that pretty," Anne said irritably. "That's what my tits are for."

"You're luminous," he said, his voice sliding into a hiss at the end of the word. "When you step into a room no one can take their eyes off you." This was demonstrably true, and had been true since she was sixteen – as had become especially clear on her entry to the French court. Anne slid her needle through the cloth and sat back, mollified.

"I'm seeing him tonight," she said. "He keeps writing me poetry, and I keep telling him I don't want it. He isn't very good at it."

"Surely not," her minstrel said.

"I just don't know–" She was silent for a moment.

Crowley was silent too, taking the time to let her work her way into it. It was always so much better when they did it themselves. They came up with so much better justification than he could come up with on his own, and it only took a little nudge – a door open that they'd never noticed before, a look at the wrong person at the right time, a full glass, abandoned in easy reach – to tilt down the path of sin, action, damnation.

"But if he drops her for me," Anne said. "What's to stop him doing the same to me?" She reached up to the bookshelf, her fingers moving along the spines, and chose one to pull out: _Encomium Moriae_.

Her minstrel regarded her. "How could anyone throw you over, Annie?" he said.

"Hmm," Anne said distractedly. She wasn't paying attention to him any more; she was reading again.

Crowley meant it; he liked her. She was clever, and dark-haired, and had a low tolerance for incurious people and asked a lot of questions. He pointedly did not interrogate the feeling of respect, or maybe affinity, that formed in him when he thought about her.

This was all going very well.

Anne was quiet, and that meant his work for the afternoon was done.

"All right, ladies," he said, bowing to the other women on his way out of the room. Jane Rochford gave him a look, and then yelped as her needle stung her.

That night Crowley played at dinner, a tune with a thrum of irritation pulsing through it, nudging the king forward and almost out of his seat. After the meal, there was dancing; he led with a rolling Provencal tune that let Anne show off.

After, he left her to work her own temptation on the king, and slipped into the kitchen.

He was just reaching for a bottle of mead when he overheard someone speaking, a familiar voice that went straight to the pit of his stomach.

"I'm _so_ sorry," it said. "Could I possibly trouble you for a stoup of Rhemish wine? It's – it's for the Eucharist, you see, it's tremendously important for the wine to be as lovely as possible – oh no, no need to uncork it, I'll just take it back to my chambers – er, to the chapel, that is –"

Crowley _knew_ it.

## Amboise, 1520

The assignment had been a bit of a surprise, anyway. Crowley'd been having a marvellous time at Amboise with Leo. They road tripped from Milan to the Loire with the French court, making sketches and drinking wine, grappa and anything else they could find.

If it was possible, Amboise was somehow even better than Milan. In a word – it was fucking balls-out bananas. There were fountains of claret. There were minstrels every night. The king was debauched and the queen could care less. There was an exceptionally bright girl with black eyes in the queen's train that Crowley exchanged three words with and then gave very wide berth. Leo was happy as a very happy clam.

"Have you heard this," he said laughing one night, when they'd been talking about helicopters. "_Defender of the Faith_. What a load of – "

"Of what?" Crowley said, falling off the chair and laughing even more from the floor. So the new king of England was _so_ good and _so _pious that the Pope had dubbed him _Fidei Defensor _– it might as well have been a red flag to, well, a demon.

Anyone calling themselves something like that shouldn't be surprised when Hell comes knocking.

Actually, Hell didn't knock; it appeared in Crowley's chambers, just as he was getting back from skinny dipping in the Loire with a few of the more adventurous artists' models. Crowley hardly had to do any tempting, it was all Leo. How had a human got to be so – inquisitive? Shameless? Crowley was still thinking about it with a slightly stupid grin on his face when he got back to find Hastur waiting with his arms folded, and Ligur sitting on his bed with his feet up on a draughtsman's sketch of a machine that wouldn't be re-invented for two hundred and eighty-seven years.

"Lads," Crowley said with rather less than enthusiasm. "How's it burning?"

"Got an assignment for ya," Ligur said. (It would be some centuries until radio technology allowed Hell to send messages remotely; in the sixteenth century, they did it the old fashioned way. Which meant two very smelly – and moist – demons squelching around all over Crowley's chambers, leaving slime trails on his best silks.)

"You're going back to England," Hastur said.

"It's cold there," Crowley said.

"It's warmer some other places," Ligur said cheerily. "…Hell. I mean Hell."

"I got it, thanks," Crowley snapped. "What's the happening?"

They told him. He nearly rolled his eyes.

"Right – well, no time to lose, hey boys?"

Hastur sniffed. "You smell…pleasant," he said suspiciously.

"It's called bathing," Crowley said. "You should try it sometime."

Ligur, who had been poking around his trunk, lifted out a sachet. "Is that bergamot?"

"Bye then," Crowley said, and half-slammed the door on his way out.

He walked back to the chateau with his hands stuck in his pockets, brooding. It was after dark, of course; the sun had set very quickly. Hell's minions were always so dramatic. 

Well, he'd been meaning to get out of here anyway. Leo was still his brilliant self but he was getting on, and Crowley didn't particularly want to be there when _it_ happened. Cowardly? Yes. But Crowley had never claimed to be brave. 

The path was lit by torches, and a short female shape was in front of him, lost in thought. Crowley recognised one of the sharper young ladies of the court.

"Bonne nuit," Crowley greeted her. "How d'you do, madamoiselle?"

"Monsieur Crowley," she said cautiously. "Bonne nuit."

Well, if he was going to have to back to damp, earnest, pious England, Crowley sure as heaven wasn't doing it alone. He snapped his fingers. A sealed paper appeared in his purse. "Actually, as it happens you're just the damsel I've been looking for," he said. Across the Channel, a broad-shouldered young man suddenly became very agitated about his inheritance.

"Oh?" she said. She looked sceptical but not alarmed.

"I've got a message for you," Crowley said. Far away, the young man's uncle proposed a solution – which was quickly agreed by everyone, and just as quickly ratified by an anxious cardinal – the uncle rushed off to write. Crowley took out the letter, and offered it to the lady. 

"Ugh," she said, recognising the seal, "Father." Her mouth said she would rather not, but she took it, and broke the wax. The pair walked a few steps towards the chateau together, both in dark silks, heads bent together, while the lady read by torchlight. As she reached the last lines, her eyebrows lifted. "He's recalling me to England," she said. "I'm to marry my cousin."

Crowley raised an eyebrow in sympathy. "I'm so sorry to hear you'll be leaving court," he said. They walked a few more steps, back into the shadow of the castle. The lady stood with a straight back, unconcerned. He continued, "As it happens, I was making plans to travel to London myself."

"Were you," she said. In no way, the tilt of her body or the expression of her face, did she look surprised.

"I suppose you'll be needing a minstrel," Crowley said. "One who knows all the best tunes."

## Florence, 1481

In fact, he'd never even intended to go to France in the first place – really, this was all Aziraphale's fault. They had been in Florence, making their way through a platter of aged pecorino and jugs of red Sangiovese at the Palazzo della Signoria. Despite the excellent cheese, Aziraphale looked bright-eyed and uncomfortable.

"Listen," he said. "About – what you suggested. You know. A few centuries ago."

"Y – yes," Crowley said.

"I have – well, the thing is," Aziraphale said. "I have an assignment. It's about a very bright young man. He's a bit – well, he's terribly talented, but his patron leaves something to be desired, and Heaven have asked if I can help get him, you know, a little more on _our side_."

"I don't think I'd be very good at tempting in the other direction," Crowley said, rolling the ruby-red wine in his goblet and looking at Aziraphale.

"I'm not asking you to!" Aziraphale said quickly. "It's just that. Our kind host," he nodded at the young Medici at the far end of the table, "has been very gracious to him, and there's a desire," he nodded up at the ceiling, and beyond, "to get him _out of Florence_, and so I was wondering, if it wouldn't be too much trouble – I'm sure you have some tempting to do in Genoa, or Ferrara or Milan or somewhere. If you could maybe – see your way to – taking him along. It would be an awfully great favour."

"Thought we weren't doing favours," Crowley said with mild interest. "What's brought this about?"

Aziraphale flushed. "There's supposed to be a particularly good feast in Modena next week," he said. "The monks have been working on this new kind of vinegar and it's supposed to be _divine_. You dribble it on bread, apparently," he said, helplessly.

"All right," Crowley relented. "What's this signior's name?"

"Leonardo," Aziraphale said. "He's apprenticed to a painter on via de' Macci. I really – if it weren't for this feast – oh, _thank you!_"

"Don't mention it," Crowley said, draining his goblet.

The next day he slouched into the artist's studio, looking around at the half-finished works. "Cute dog," he said to himself. "Hellooooooo?"

A young man emerged, wiping off a paintbrush. "Hello?"

"I'm looking for an assistant," Crowley said.

"For what?" he said.

"Hang on," Crowley said, looking over his shoulder into the back room. "Is that – what's that?"

The young man looked. "It's a bridge over the river Arno."

"And that?"

"It's a sketch of a flying machine," the young man said defensively.

"That," Crowley said, "is _very interesting_." And he meant it.

## Reggio-Emilia, 1481

It was hardly even a temptation, when it came down to the thing itself, Leonardo was buzzing with the idea of travel, and taking his ideas to new ears and potential patrons. "Milan seems nice," Crowley said offhandedly, and so they went to offer their services to the duke of Sforza's court, riding light. Crowley, having nothing to take with him other than an overflowing black leather purse, carried Leo's drawing tools in his saddlebag.

After three days' travel and crossing the Apennines, they stopped at an osteria just outside Parma. Crowley went in to arrange a room – mysteriously, when he negotiated he seemed to have better luck than Leo – while Leo took the horses to the stable.

"Ciao," Crowley said. "I'd like a room tonight for me and my friend, per favore and there's a good lad."

The host looked him up and down. "I expect you must be Signior Crowley," he said.

"Er," Crowley said. No use denying it when it was said out loud like that. "Do I know you?"

"Thought so," the host continued. "I said to myself, can't be too many gentlemen running around with black silk and funny tinted eyeglasses, not at this time of year anyhow. Someone left a letter for you," and he handed it over.

Crowley's stomach jumped as he recognised Aziraphale's excruciatingly tidy handwriting on the paper.

"Room's paid for as well," the host said, running a finger down his account book and frowning.

"Very kind," Crowley said, staring at the letter.

Leo came in. "All sorted?" he said.

"Er – yeah, all sorted," Crowley said, turning it over.

"The stablekeeper is a particularly fraternal sort," Leo said _sotto voce_ to Crowley. "Would you mind just – keeping down here for a bit? Out of the way? An hour or two at most."

"Sure, yeah," said Crowley, whose brain was still catching up with the fact that Aziraphale had sent him something in writing. "Yeah – oh. Right, got you! Good luck."

Leo winked and patted Crowley on the back as he left.

Crowley opened the letter.

_Thanks ever so much,_ Aziraphale wrote. _The vinegar was everything I hoped it would be – and more!!! I looked for you in Florence but you had departed. Hope to thank you soon!! We can share a 'Vin Maledicto' on me! Ha ha!!!!!_

Crowley folded the note into his pocket; he would analyse the complicated and slightly overwhelming feelings that accompanied it later.

"Drink?" the host said.

"_Please_," Crowley said fervently.

## Milan, 1495

And when they got to Milan, Satan, did the Sforzas know how to live! Crowley saw Leo set up with a whole studio to himself, and spent nearly every month at the opening of a new work by some artist or sculptor or other. What a brilliant court, what a brilliant city, what a brilliant decade. Humans were wonderful. Leo was a genius. Crowley was posed spread-eagle on the wall.

"Hold _still_," Leo said. He was holding a thin measuring rope against Crowley's waist with one hand, and carefully rolling it down with the other. He stopped, and noted the length.

"My arms're getting tired," said Crowley, who was using a minor miracle to stay this way, but he wasn't really complaining. "Can't you – "

"No," Leo said. He held the rope against Crowley's wrist, then his elbow, then his shoulder. His tongue was poking slightly out. Crowley had the incredibly absurd urge to – "I just don't understand," Leo said, comparing the measurements. "The proportion of your hips is completely inexplicable. How do you _work?_"

Crowley was about to come back with something really blasphemous when the door to the studio opened and a whiff of angelic goodness floated in.

"Er – hello?" a familiar voice called out. "Lady Beatrice told me I might find… oh, dear."

"Angel!" Crowley said delightedly.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said, staring.

"Buongiorno, signior," Leo said, immediately slipping into a practiced courteous yes-it's-me-Leonardo-sorry-no-autographs persona. "Thank you for your interest, so flattering, but you'll have to come back later, I'm afraid we're in the middle of something here."

"…_Are_ you," Aziraphale said, still staring at Crowley.

"It's all right, Leo, he's a friend," Crowley said, hopping down from his pose. (Leo groaned, and threw the measuring rope against the wall.) "What brings you to Milan? It's been decades! Oh – this is Leonardo da Vinci."

Aziraphale extended a hand. "_Leo_, was it?" he said frostily.

Almost for the first time in his long life on Earth, Crowley didn't notice Aziraphale's tone. "And Leo, this is – er, a friend from Florence."

"We're not friends," Aziraphale replied automatically.

Leo looked back and forth. "Wait," he said. "This is your friend from Florence? _That_ friend from Florence? The notorious Signior Fell?"

"Er," Crowley said.

"…You've been talking about me?" Aziraphale said. A sudden cloud came over the sun, throwing the studio into mid-afternoon darkness. "What have you said."

"Uh," Crowley said. Across the piazza, thunder rumbled. "Good things?"

"I see," Aziraphale said.

There was a long moment of silence, and darkening. In the new dimness of the room, Leo looked again, at the faint glimmering light that seemed to surround one, and the inky blackness that leached into the air from the other. In the space, he cleared his throat.

"If it's not too delicate, I have a favour to ask," he said. "Might I draw you two together?"

## Milan, 1494

Leonardo woke to the sound of slow, raspy breathing. This wasn't new; but he was certain he had come to bed alone tonight. He opened his eyes cautiously.

Crowley was slumped against the wall, his hand wrapped around the neck of a near-empty bottle of wine.

"Do you think opposite people can love each other?" he said. His eyes were bleary. "I mean, not people. You know. Beings. Do you think opposite beings can – ?"

Leonardo lifted a hand to his eyes. Dawn was just beginning to creep over the horizon. He looked at the timepiece across the room and sighed. "It's the sixth hour of the morning, Antonio," he said.

"Sorry," Crowley said. "I'm just. Having some emotions. Wondering."

Leonardo sighed and patted the bed. "Sit down," he said.

Crowley leaned in for a kiss.

"_No_," Lenny said, equal parts amusement and exasperation. "Come on, I know you don't want that. I've tried enough times."

That got Crowley's attention. "You have?"

"Sit _down_, Crowley."

Crowley did. They sat in silence for a few moments. Leonardo contemplated going back to sleep, though he kept one eye on Crowley in case he decided to pass out or throw up. He thought he'd fallen asleep sitting up, until after a few moments, a tear leaked from behind his left eyeglass.

"I don't even know if he _likes_ me," he said.

Leonardo looked outside again. A sliver of sun was showing itself over the treetops; it was without question Morning. He sighed, and pushed the blankets back, patting a space on the bed. "Tell me about it," he said.

"He's very _good_," Crowley said. He took a swig from the bottle; it must have been a trick of the light, because it was suddenly full again.

"At what?"

"Just," Crowley's free hand traced several complicated patterns in the air. (Several thousand miles away, a flock of giant aphids destroyed a very surprised field of maize.) _"Good_."

"All right."

"And," he said, leaning in to Leonardo's face and blowing stale wine all over him, "he's also really, really –" Crowley's face was inches from Leonardo's. "Stupid."

Leonardo held his breath. "Stupid?"

"Incredibly stupid. Like, the biggest fucking moron you've ever met in your life. He does things like – giving things away, and being _kind_ to people even when they're assholes, and – His _eyes_ though." Crowley went silent.

Leonardo waited another few breaths, but Crowley didn't give any more away.

"I'm going to get up and work on my art," Leonardo said. "Feel free to take the bed."

"All right," Crowley said, sounding a thousand miles away.

When Leonardo got back to his room, he was gone.

## London, 1535

Aziraphale paced. He paced up; he paced down; he paced around the little room at Hampton Court until there was a path on the rug. There was no question, in any possible interpretation of recent events, of _any_ cause other than that this _was all Crowley's fault_.

The king of England was setting himself up _above_ the Church; houses of God were being defaced left, right and centre; and it was certainly, without question, all down to that _demon_.

Something had to be done.

Henry did seem particularly susceptible to women. If he listened to his wife's counsel, maybe what he needed – Aziraphale reasoned – was a counter-voice. Nothing too _agitating_ – just a calm, soothing reminder of the grace of God.

"That Seymour girl seems sensible," he said, in his new situation as the king's confessor (Dr. Cranmer having suddenly taken ill with a stomach cramp). "So pious, so demure. She truly seems to care about serving the Almighty."

"Bit small in the – you know," the king said.

"Your Majesty!"

"I forget," the king said, smiling.

Aziraphale frowned and adjusted his cowl. "You might at least spend some more time with her. Her influence might do you good, since mine so clearly does not."

"I'm married," the king said. He sounded mildly annoyed. "And Anne doesn't like it when I – "

"Oh, nothing untoward!" Aziraphale rushed to say. This was not what he had meant at all!

"I suppose a little prayer wouldn't hurt," the king said.

Aziraphale sat back, already mentally drafting the report of a job well done.

**THREE WEEKS LATER**

"Another divorce," he said faintly. "Already?"

"My wife is in league with the devil," the king said.

"No argument here," Aziraphale muttered. "It's only to say, Your Majesty – such a measure seems a bit – extreme? Rapid?"

"Just find me a way to make it happen," Henry said.

"Of course, Your Majesty." Aziraphale paused, and sniffed the air.

Sulfur?

He found Crowley in the kitchens, part way through fermenting a barrel of flat lukewarm ale into something a Belgian monk might be proud of.

"Crowley!" he snapped.

Crowley looked up. The barrel burst. "Blast," he said. "Angel! How are you?"

"I knew it," Aziraphale snapped. "I cannot believe you're up to your old tricks. Which aren't even that old."

"Don't talk to me," Crowley said darkly. "Your lot have been up to enough lately. And I suppose that's you, isn't it, seeing as we're both the only ones _here._"

"My lot!" Aziraphale said. If quivering self-righteousness could have taken mortal form and put on a white cowl, it would have looked just like him. "_You_ have been stirring up foment among the righteous for decades. After all I asked you to – " he stopped to collect himself. "Anyway, don't think we haven't noticed! All that business with that German doctor."

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "I thought that was you," he said.

"Of course it wasn't! People have been killing each other for decades! Imagine, turning something as pure and good as God's love into an excuse to kill each other."

"Imagine," Crowley said dryly, and Aziraphale briefly didn't have very much to say. "Anyway, I was busy."

"Don't tell _me_," Aziraphale said.

"Look," Crowley said, feeling defensive for reasons he couldn't put into words and certainly didn't want to try, "when I do a good thing I do it _right._ As requested. I've held up my end. Don't see you doing much tempting."

But Aziraphale heard this only with half a flutter of an angelic curl, and continued, "Anyway, at least I was hoping for a little self-respect from you – not this same-old same-old. Oh, I think my wife's a witch. Oh, she had a pre-contract. Oh, our marriage is cursed in the eyes of God and I'll never have a lawful heir. At least come up with a new angle! It takes all the challenge out of thwarting."

Crowley was listening with an expression of seemingly genuine concern. "Hold on, what's going on?"

"He's divorcing his wife. _Again_."

"Annie?"

"It's distracting them all from doing the right thing! This is no way to follow the ways of the Almighty!" Aziraphale said. His anxiety was almost a whine.

"He's divorcing Annie?" Crowley repeated.

"I knew she was one of yours," Aziraphale said. "I should have guessed. Six fingers and a tail and all that."

"She does _not_," Crowley said.

"And how would you – do you know what, never mind. Nothing about you surprises me."

"Feeling's mutual," Crowley said, and stalked out.

Aziraphale looked around, at the empty kitchen, the burst barrel and the beer-sticky stone floor.

"_Bother_," he said with feeling.

## London, 1536… and on

"And may God bring her to eternal rest, _Amen_."

"Amen," Henry said hoarsely.

Aziraphale let the word hang in the air, then bowed his head and turned to go back to his quarters. He stepped behind the altar into the connecting passage to the rest of the palace, and ran flat into Crowley.

"Good service," Crowley said. "She seemed nice. Boring, but nice. Now what?"

Aziraphale was so happy to see him he didn't bother to greet him.

"_Fix this,_" he hissed.

"Right, yeah," Crowley said quickly.

*

Two weeks later Crowley knocked on the heavy wooden door of the king's council chamber. It was opened by the Lord Chancellor; the other members of the privy council were also within, and Archbishop Fell.

"Master Cromwell," Crowley said. "I've just had that package you asked for – the portrait you commissioned from the Low Countries."

"Give it here," the Lord Chancellor said roughly, uncovering the painting.

"Oh, a Holbein!" Crowley said. "Nice one."

"Didn't realise you were an art connoisseur," Cromwell said. The archbishop glowered. Crowley opened his mouth to expand on this, but Cromwell barrelled on, "It's very important that the king like this one, gentlemen – she's supposed to have a good head on her shoulders and heaven knows he needs someone sensible to keep him in line."

"Amen," the archbishop said fervently.

"I like her," Crowley said, looking at the picture.

Cromwell looked at it sceptically. "I'm not sure," he said. "Do you not think she's a bit…?"

"Let me see?" Crowley took it in his hand, and brushed a speck of dirt off the frame, briefly passing his hand over the lady's face.

"It must have been the light," Cromwell said, frowning. "Yes, all right, she'll do."

"Wonderful!" the king's confessor said, clapping his hands a little. "You see! Everyone will live happily ever after."

**SIX MONTHS LATER**

"I don't know _how_ I'm going to write this up," Aziraphale muttered, as Anne rode away into the sunset in a rich and luxurious carriage, with Henry at the gate looking like a thunderclap.

"All right," Crowley growled, "sensible didn't work. Let's try pretty but dim."

**SIXTEEN MONTHS LATER**

The girl finished speaking, with only a small quaver, and laid her head down gracefully; the axe flashed.

"Oh dear," Aziraphale said.

"_Fine_," Crowley said. "All _right._ Let's try again. Pretty, sensible, and none of this blessed virginity nonsense."

**TWO YEARS LATER**

They left England in the safe hands of the new queen – moderate, learned and wise – with the king at peace with his daughters, both reinstated into the line of succession.

"Well, that was certainly an exercise," Aziraphale said. "It's been – it's been nice to see you."

Crowley stopped, and thought about this very deeply. "Yes, it has," he said, sounding surprised.

"Do you know where you're off to next?"

"No instructions yet. Thought I might go south for a bit."

"I hear there's some lovely vineyards in Bordeaux," Aziraphale said hopefully.

"Sure, why not," Crowley said. "At least I'll go along with you as far as Paris."

"Oh – really?"

"Yeah," Crowley said. "Be nice to get some proper wine again."

## Epilogue 1: London, 1546

After a decade working their way through the best of Burgundy, Aziraphale thought they should pop back just to see how things were getting on.

"Heretic!" a woman called, brandishing a torch.

"Heretic!" another called back, strapped to the stake.

"Oh for fuck's _sake_," Crowley said.

## Epilogue 2: London, 2019

After a lovely long afternoon watching tourists and exploring the cocktails at Europe's longest champagne bar, Crowley and Aziraphale poured themselves out of the St Pancras Grand and made a move towards the taxi rank on the west side of the station. Crowley looked up and found himself face-to-face with a portrait of Leonardo, advertising an exhibition just across the road.

"Oh!" he said.

"Oh," said Aziraphale.

"Look, let's go," Crowley said, taking his hand. "It'll be fun. Come on! I can tell you all the dirty parts."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said, but the edge was off; he was secure in his place in Crowley's affection, and in particular looking forward to what indulgences he might obtain later in the evening when Crowley was in a good mood. They paid their entry fee at the British Library ticket desk, and went into the exhibition hall.

"Drunk when he drew that," Crowley said, pointing at sketches around the room and not bothering to lower his voice. "Drew that on a bet. Drew that to impress me. Drew that to impress this other guy, and oh, you should have _seen _his face when he showed up with one of the d'Este girls…"

Aziraphale was well on his way to enjoying himself when in the third room he came across a small sketch and stopped short.

The label read, _Untitled drawing of two gentlemen. Pencil, Milan, 1500? This study of dark and light shows Leonardo's important early contribution to _chiaroscuro_, a technique which became increasingly popular across the Renaissance and which is another indication of the artist's experimental innovation. _

"What," Aziraphale said with ice in his voice, "is that."

"It's our picture," Crowley said happily. "Oh – you look _terrible_."


End file.
